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Social Work Spotlight: CVBoosters

Atif Ali describes the fund-raising his organisation, CVBoosters, is doing on behalf of The Citizen’s Foundation. This really is a great idea, since it’s sustainable and rewarding for both volunteers and donors, which is certainly key to success!

They say that necessity is the mother of all invention; it’s strange just how true that statement is.

Back in July after completing our finals at the LSE, four of us who had just landed jobs at leading investment banks, decided to make full use of the opportunity afforded to us. Having heard about the tremendous work going on in Pakistan by The Citizens Foundation, we thought it would be rewarding if we too could build a school in Pakistan. With this in mind we said our farewells and left the LSE.

A few months later, having entered the world of investment banking, I met a friend for iftar. She had just returned from Pakistan to start her job and while out there had witnessed first-hand the impact a TCF school was making to its surrounding community. As she went on to describe how the lives of the students were being radically changed I began running through fundraising ideas that I had been mulling over for the last few weeks. Of all the ideas, a CV checking service seemed to be the one project that we could genuinely add value to and simultaneously raise some money for the charity.

Since graduate applications for investment banking jobs were now well under way we had to move fast. Within a week we had set up the framework for our idea and CVBoosters opened for business. Our idea is simple: we check CVs and cover letters and offer budding investment bankers a chance to take part in a half-day interview workshop. These workshops are run by investment bankers, giving the students a very realistic simulation of what to expect at final round interviews at investment banks. For this, we ask for a small donation with all proceeds going to The Friends of the Citizens Foundation, the UK registered charity supporting The Citizens Foundation.

Over a month has now passed and we have expanded our services and are continually refining the way we do business. We have run two immensely successful interview workshops at the LSE in conjunction with the LSE Chinese Development Society and have attracted over a dozen bankers ranging from Analyst to Vice-President Level, all keen to volunteer to help run our workshops.

We are currently in the process of setting up a website for CVBoosters and will be running further workshops at the LSE, UCL and Imperial in January. I must admit, I see incredible potential for this project and am currently looking at a number of areas which we can expand into. To be honest, when we started I never dreamt that we would even make one hundred pounds yet as I write this piece we are just a few pounds shy of one thousand and have helped three students secure jobs at Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and Barclays.

Our motto is for us to win someone else has to win as well and if we stay true to this and work earnestly, I believe we’ll make a real difference to the lives of students both here and in Pakistan.